DeJuan Blair: The Song

If I had to select a favorite current NBA player, I would probably pick DeJuan Blair of the Washington Wizards. Of course, my selection of Blair has nothing to do with his NBA career, but rather that he is from Pittsburgh and played at the University of Pittsburgh. I attended a Pitt-Georgetown game at the Verizon Center in 2009 where Blair scored 20 points and had 17 rebounds. He also had 22 points and 23 rebounds when Pitt defeated the #1 ranked UConn and dominated Hasheem Thabeet. Blair really was fun to watch in college.

After starting his career in San Antonio and playing in Dallas last year, Blair joined the Wizards this season. Living in DC, I follow the Wizards, so I was excited about the former Panther coming to the nation's capital. While I rarely watch Wizards games, I always check the box score to see how Blair played. The other night, though, Blair wasn't listed in the box score. I did a quick search on Twitter to see what happened to Blair and stumbled across this (very NSFW) song:



I have no idea why this song is titled DeJuan Blair as the lyrics don't appear to mention him or have anything to do with him. I also have no idea who Woozy Wee is,* but based on this picture, I'm guessing that his dentist does. Although Woozy Wee's music isn't really my scene, I applaud him for naming a song for the great Blair and hope he has success.


* I did find a Weezy Wee who operates "a beauty & lifestyle blog written from the streets of Los Angeles." Weezy Wee and Woozy Wee do not appear to be the same person. This is not a sentence I ever thought I would type.

DeJuan Blair vs Hasheem Thabeet

If you're looking for the Best Pittsburgh Sports Blog Tournament, please scroll down to the post below.

Growing up in Pittsburgh as a sports fan, we had the Pirates, Penguins, Steelers, and Panthers, and for brief periods of time, the USFL’s Maulers, arena football’s Gladiators, indoor soccer’s Spirit and the Pittsburgh Bulls indoor lacrosse team (featuring #66 Butch Marino). As you can tell, none of these are NBA teams. Without a local team in the pre-internet (how did we live without internet casinos?) and pre-SportsCenter era (there probably was SportsCenter but I don’t remember watching it until later), my friends and I never followed the NBA and naturally were not big NBA fans. Sure we watched the Lakers and Celtics championships, but otherwise, I don’t even remember the NBA being on television.

These days, I check the box scores of nearly every NBA game played by the San Antonio Spurs, Memphis Grizzlies and New Orleans Hornets to see how former Pitt players DeJuan Blair, Sam Young and Aaron Gray are doing. All three are currently starting on their respective teams, though DeJuan Blair is the player of this group who really stands out. Although Blair benefits from playing on team with Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, Bill Simmons included him at #50 in his NBA trade value column since he puts up double-doubles regularly. Anyone who watched him at Pitt knew what a great player he was, though there was a question about how his size (6’7”) would translate in the NBA. Of course, some doubts may have been alleviated from his match-up with 7’3” Hasheem Thabeet of Connecticut. Let’s go back to February 16, 2009, shall we.





While the videos illustrate that Blair dominated Thabeet in this game, the box score shows it even more.

Blair: 22 points; 23 rebounds; 2 assists and 1 block.
Thabeet: 5 points; 4 rebounds; 2 steals and 2 blocks (fouled out).

So here's what I don't understand about the NBA. Although Blair dominated Thabeet, the UConn center was drafted 2nd overall and earned a very nice payday. Meanwhile, Blair wasn't drafted until the 2nd round at 37th overall. I understand that you can't look at the one aforementioned game in a vacuum, but it turned out to be accurate.

Not including last night’s game against the Chicago Bulls, Blair is averaging 8.6 points per game and 7.5 rebounds per game in only 22+ minutes per game. Meanwhile, Thabeet plays only about 8 minutes per game and averages 1.1 points and 1.6 rebounds. If you’re 7’3” how don’t you get at least 2 rebounds a game just by standing under the basket? Thabeet was listed as a DNP (did not play): Coach's Decision in Memphis' last two games. Therefore, Thabeet had the same impact on these games as if he was sitting home playing video poker online.

This post isn't to discredit Thabeet. Enough people in hindsight criticize Thabeet and Memphis for drafting him 2nd overall. It seems to me that NBA teams are scared to pass on what they feel might be a dominant center since this is rare to find. This post is just to point out that I don't understand how so many teams passed on DeJuan Blair, and to show appreciation for how well he is doing in the NBA.

Plus, I like seeing the video of Blair slamming Thabeet again!

Pitt Falls To Villanova

I really want to be upset or disappointed about Pitt’s loss to Villanova in the Elite Eight on Saturday night, but I can’t. I guess you could say that if Pitt made one more free throw, allowed one less offensive rebound, or turned the ball over one less time, they would have won. Well sure, but to use an expression that I hate, it is what it is.* Pitt and Villanova are both great teams and played an amazing game. Villanova has as balanced a team there is in the country and deserves its spot in the Final Four. Plus, after seeing how poorly top teams Oklahoma and Louisville played on Sunday, I feel even better about Pitt’s performance. Levance Fields, Sam Young and DeJuan Blair all had terrific seasons, and the team as a whole deserves credit for accomplishments that no other Pitt team has achieved.

I should also add another reason why I’m not too upset about Pitt’s loss. I talked to a woman on Friday whose kids went to high school with Scottie Reynolds. She was rooting for Villanova because she said that he is a nice kid and is a bit of a hometown hero. I really can’t hate a team like Villanova who has three seniors in Cunningham, Anderson and Clark and also features Corey Fisher who has had an amazing childhood as featured by ESPN.com last week. Jay Wright and the team are likable and play a fun style of basketball where they can dominate on both ends of the floor (just ask Duke).

Anyway, congratulations to the University of Pittsburgh Panthers men’s basketball team on an incredible season! Thanks to Fields, Young and Biggs for their four seasons at Pitt.

For more about the game and Pitt's season, go to Pitt Blather and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website.



* If I ever use this expression here again, feel free to stop reading this blog!

Pitt-Georgetown Recap

Did you know that the Georgetown University had a 28-game winning streak at the Verizon Center? The key word of that sentence is "had" after Pitt’s impressive 70-54 win on Saturday. Here are my thoughts of the game from my view in Section 404.

- When showed on the scoreboard, the national anthem singer looked like a frail, old man, who may not even make it through the song. Well, he quickly proved me wrong by belting out the anthem better than David Cook or David Archuleta ever could.

- Speaking of the national anthem, I hate the Baltimore-Washington people who yell "O" during the line "O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave." That is completely disrespectful and tarnishes the national anthem. Stop it!

- As for the game itself, DeJuan Blair is the man. I didn’t see the complete stats until I got home, but Blair had 20 points, 17 rebounds and added 3 assists.

- I noticed during the game that the Panthers seemed to have few turnovers. I was correct as they only had 8, none by point guard Levance Fields, who also had 8 assists.

- The game was tied 40 all when Pitt went on a dominating 17-4 run and closed the game by outscoring Georgetown 30-14.

- DaJuan Summers had 15 points in the first half, but only 7 in the second half, many of which coming on meaningless free throws in the last few minutes. Nice adjustment by Jamie Dixon and the Pitt defense.

- I was expecting big things from Georgetown’s freshman Greg Monroe. The box score shows that he had 15 points, but I barely noticed him.

- The only negatives about Pitt’s performance are the fact that they didn’t get to the free throw line often (only 6 attempts; 3 makes) and the team shot a poor 15.8% (3 of 19) from 3-point range. Jermaine Dixon had two points and was 0-for-5 from 3. That’s our starting shooting guard.

- Gilbert Brown and Brad Wanamaker continue to impress me coming off the bench. They combined for 14 points and 10 rebounds and only 1 turnover while providing solid minutes, energy and defense.

- The CBSSports.com recap of the game includes this statement:

In the second half, however, it was Blair who was thumping his chest while chants of "Let's Go, Pitt!" came from the thousands of upper-deck fans who made the trip to the nation's capital.

After living in the DC area for 7+ years now, I feel like it’s time to address this. Were there people from Western Pennsylvania who made the trip to DC for a Saturday game? Sure. However, my guess is that the vast majority of Pitt fans in attendance live in the Baltimore-Washington area. The Post-Gazette ran a three-part series a few years ago about Pittsburghers who moved from the area and included the graphic below about where Pittsburghers moved between 1985 and 1990. Five of those counties listed are in and around Washington. Now, how many people moved from Pittsburgh to this area over the past 18 years? My guess is tens of thousands and maybe over 100,000. How many University of Pittsburgh grads now live around DC? Perhaps several thousand. So that’s why there were 20,000-30,000 Steelers fans at the Redskins game this season. That’s why half of the crowds at Penguins-Capitals games consists of Penguins fans. That’s why there are even Pirates fans at Nationals games. After all of these years, why do announcers and columnists continue to write that Pittsburgh fans travel so well? Well, they do, but the bigger reason is that there are so many Pittsburgh fans already in the area. OK, I’ll get off my soapbox now.



By the way, in the Washington Post recap of the game, Liz Clarke wrote that, "the near-capacity crowd of 19,397 fell largely silent as Blair and the Panthers put the game out of reach in the second half, scoring on all but two possessions during a 14-minute stretch." It seemed pretty loud to me with all of the Pitt fans in attendance. Was Liz Clarke sitting in the locker room or was she even at the game?

Go Pitt!

Oh, one final note. I'd like to thanks Clyde's for being the first bar/restaurant in years for carding me. However, they used a Sharpie pen on my hand to show that I'm over 21 that I still can't get out.